


Make My Wish Come True

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Take Me To The Stars [10]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas Decorations, Christmas Fluff, F/F, Mistletoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-24 05:43:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17094938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Christmas had become a sticking point for Clara since escaping Trap Street. Too many unhappy memories, and too many ghosts of the past.But this Christmas? This Christmas she has the Oncoming Storm with her once again. The Oncoming Storm, large quantities of wrapping paper, and a Christmas tree.





	Make My Wish Come True

**Author's Note:**

> For the first time in *squints at calendar* two years, I haven't done a Whouffaldi Christmas fic! Y'all get Soufflaker instead.
> 
> This started short and... grew. Enjoy.
> 
> Happy Christmas to all my wonderful readers!

Clara supposes that really, one of the only drawbacks that comes with living in a time machine is that the linearity of the year is entirely disrupted. There’s no sense of beginning or end to it; no convenient times for celebrations to fit in in a logical order, or even at all. In the past she’s done Easter three times in a row; she’s done Halloween once followed by Bonfire Night twice; but one thing she hasn’t done at all since her recent granting of  functional immortality has been Christmas. She isn’t sure why – after all, it would be entirely within her abilities to find a planet that celebrates all year round and make it her permanent home. Perhaps it’s to do with the painful memories of the past that the season brings – memories of Doctors and family members and friends long since gone, and so she shies away from the thought of it and the very idea of celebrating the festive season at all. 

Or she does, until the Doctor plonks herself down beside her in the kitchen one morning and breathlessly announces:

“I want us to do Christmas. Together. Properly.”

There’s so much innocent joy in the Time Lady’s eyes at the mere enunciation of the word that Clara can’t quite bring herself to tell her about her aversion to the notion of it all. She can’t bring herself to explain that it’s painful to recall the people and versions of the Time Lord she’s lost, even if admittedly the men she remembers so fondly have become the woman by her side now. It seems easier to smile and to nod and to feign enthusiasm, and so she does, allowing the Doctor to talk about trees and presents and traditions until she’s exhausted from the sheer effort of listening to the unceasing flow of words. 

And through it all, she just nods, nods, nods; resigning herself to the sheer inevitability of it all.

 

* * *

 

The first problem they encounter is a fairly large one. Literally _and_ figuratively, they discover, as they stand and stare up at the enormous Christmas tree that they’ve hauled into the console room with only minor amounts of swearing and moulting pine needles. The TARDIS is displeased about the whole affair, and makes her dissatisfaction known – the lights are cycling through their many stages of brightness in a way that’s making Clara’s head ache, and it’s not until the Doctor lays a hand on a nearby column that the flickering ceases – which has the unwanted side effect of returning their attention to the problem at hand.

“Well, you must have some decorations,” the Doctor says with desperation, furrowing her brow at Clara, who had been enjoying at last feeling somewhat festive until the problem had presented itself some minutes prior. “It’s an infinite time- and spaceship, you must have some tinsel kicking about somewhere.” 

“I don’t…” Clara swallows, feeling herself turn maroon as she speaks the words into existence: “I don’t really do Christmas, usually.”

“Why?! It’s brill; Christmas is the _best_. Food and presents and friends and sparkly things. Great holiday, Christmas. Course, I was there at the first one – got a bit cramped in the stable, but-” 

“There’s ah… too many memories,” Clara pulls the sleeves of her jumper over her hands, resisting the urge to pick at her cuticles. It’s an old habit that she keeps meaning to wean herself off of, but something about her body’s stubborn refusal to be damaged fascinates her, so she keeps pick, pick, picking away at herself in times of crisis. This is definitely a crisis. This is a conversation she does not want to be having. The Doctor has stopped talking and given Clara her full attention, which somehow makes it all the worse. “Involved in it all.”

“Memories of what?” 

“You,” her voice trembles only slightly, and she’s adversely proud of that fact. She takes a deep, fortifying breath and continues: “My parents. Friends. Danny.”

“I…” the Doctor blinks at her, her festive euphoria visibly draining away as she steps closer to Clara and places her hands on her partner’s waist. Her expression becomes abruptly contrite, and Clara feels an irrational pang of guilt for spoiling her jubilant mood. “I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” 

“Being such a child about this all. Getting carried away. Not thinking about what it must be like for you.” 

“You didn’t know, Doctor. It isn’t your fault; you don’t need to apologise.” 

“I should have thought about how overwhelming it would be. I really am sorry, Clara.”

“It’s not your fault,” Clara looks up at her and forces a smile, desperate to reassure her partner that everything is fine and return to the issue at hand: the tree. “Really. I’m fine. Well. I _will_ be fine, anyway. Stop fussing.”

“I won’t, because you’re not fine,” the Doctor tilts her head to the side, flicking her eyes over Clara from head to toe in a silent appraisal and then making a decision. “Do you want the tree to go? Because we can get rid of it and not celebrate, if you’d find it all too much.” 

“No, you want to – don’t be daft,” Clara shakes her head vehemently, appalled by the very idea, not least because she hasn’t suffered through the indignity of being pricked by hundreds of pine needles for nothing. “You want to be Christmassy, so we’ll be Christmassy.” 

“But your heart isn’t in it, and I don’t want you to feel forced into being jolly.” 

“I don’t feel forced into anything, Doctor, not least because you _couldn’t_ force me to do anything, remember? You know me. Stubborn as a mule, but with a wider face.”

“I know, but Clara, the last thing I want to do to you is to make you feel pressured into _anything_. Ever. I love you and I want you to be comfortable, and I don’t want you to just do this because you think it’ll make me happy. I never ever want you to feel like that’s something you have to do. I’ve been around the block a bit, I can handle the word ‘no.’ As long as it’s polite, mind.” 

“I don’t feel pressured,” Clara says at once, aghast at the mere suggestion. “And I really don’t feel forced. I _want_ you to be happy, and I really do like the idea of Christmas deep down, I’m just… not quite sure how to overcome the ghosts. As it were.”

“Well, we could try to make new memories,” the Doctor suggests with a soft smile, allowing her hand to trail upwards and alight on her cheek. “How would that be? New memories to try to counter the old. Happy memories.” 

“I…” Clara blinks hard against the tears that have suddenly welled in her eyes, then smiles. “I’d like that.”

“Good,” the Doctor presses a quick kiss to her forehead. “So, decorations. How are we going to do this?” 

After some brainstorming, they spend a happy few hours bunching foil into baubles and threading popcorn onto long strings to make garlands, an idea that occurs to Clara like a long-forgotten memory. By the time they’re done, they discover that neither of them is quite tall enough to reach the very top of the tree to place the star, but it doesn’t matter – they can ask Ryan next time they see him, no rush. For now, it’s beautiful and it’s a labour of love and it’s _theirs._

And the ache in Clara’s chest eases, just a fraction.

 

* * *

 

“I want to go ice skating,” the Doctor declares out of nowhere, sitting atop the counter and swinging her legs as she gnaws on a candy cane. “It looks like fun and I used to be quite good at it, so where can we go?”

Clara’s mind at once goes entirely blank, so she suggests one of the first places that comes to mind. Visiting will be a risk, certainly – the chances of seeing a past student are high – but it seems all the more appealing for the element of danger, so they wrap themselves up in ludicrous jumpers and coordinating rainbow scarves and travel to London’s Natural History Museum with the highest of hopes. 

They hadn’t planned to visit the museum itself, yet the Doctor finds inextricably herself drawn to the wonders inside, Clara trailing along in her wake as the Time Lady rushes from exhibit to exhibit with awestruck wonder and a constant, unrelenting monologue about the provenance of each item and the accuracy of its labels. There’s a couple of exhibits she claims to have snuck in, and a couple more that she accuses the museum of pinching, and Clara nods and makes appropriate noises of incredulity and amazement accordingly, content to follow wherever the Doctor sees fit to lead her. It’s endearingly sweet to watch the Time Lady light up with enthusiasm, and so Clara listens and learns and watches, letting herself be towed along by the hand like a long-suffering parent. 

By the time they make it back out into the bitter winter air and lace up their skates, she’s mostly amazed that the Gallifreyan hasn’t exhausted herself from the sheer effort of talking, and as Clara steps out onto the ice with tentative, tiny footsteps, clinging to the side for balance, she turns to look for her partner instinctively. 

The Doctor is a short distance behind her but strides confidently towards the rink, placing one foot on the ice and somehow – Clara isn’t sure of the logistics of it all, it happens _that_ fast – falls flat onto her face in an ungainly, Bambi-like manner.

“Shit,” Clara yelps, pushing away from the side and slip-sliding inelegantly over to her partner who is… laughing. Inexplicably. Breathless and chuckling and sat on her bum on the ice, running her bare fingertips over the rough surface of the rink. She doesn’t seem to be in pain, which is an immediate positive – Clara isn’t sure how she could explain a regeneration to the assembled other skaters, some of whom are starting to crowd around in concern.

“Are you alright?” Clara asks, hauling the Time Lady back to her feet with some difficulty. Apparently Gallifreyans and ice are not the best of friends, and her mind flicks back to a submarine and a warrior from Mars. “That looked painful.” 

“No, I’m fine,” the Doctor assures her, wiping her hands on her coat and grimacing for a moment before her usual grin returns. “Balancing is… much harder than it looks. Frozen water is a lot more lethal than I remember it being. Killer snowflakes aside.” 

“Be careful, alright? I don’t want any broken wrists.” 

“Of course I’ll be careful,” the Doctor scoffs, then  immediately falls over again, much to Clara’s considerable consternation. “Ow.” 

“Yes, ow.”

They settle for skating cautiously around the outside of the rink, Clara holding the Doctor’s hand firmly in her own to provide much-needed support. There’s more slips and trips and falls before their session is finished, and the two of them stumble off the ice bruised and damp and rosy-cheeked in search of hot chocolate. 

“How was that?” Clara asks, wrapping an arm around her partner’s waist as they steam quietly in the warmth of a nearby café. “Other than painful?” 

“Fun,” the Doctor grins, her enthusiasm unwavering. “I could get used to these shared human experiences at Christmas. Never saw the point before.”

“And now you do?” 

“Something like that,” the Doctor smiles at her then, and it’s a smile she knows – it’s the one that means she’s about to say something that’ll take her by surprise, unaccustomed as she still is by the warmth and affection of this version of the Time Lady. “Now I’ve got you to do it with, so I can see the draw.” 

“God, you’re soft.” 

The Doctor wrinkles her nose, pleased. “I know.”

 

* * *

 

The concept of present-wrapping had been easy enough to explain to the Doctor. Anything that contributed to the general sense of excitement surrounding The Big Day was something the Time Lady could fully back.

Explaining the _logistics_ of present wrapping had been harder; so much so that Clara had considered whether it was worth just sticking the Doctor in front of YouTube for six hours or so to learn from various expert video tutorials, before immediately dismissing the idea as ridiculous. The last time anything similar had happened, the Doctor had ended up going down a YouTube wormhole so deep that Clara found her watching conspiracy theories about unboxing videos. It had taken her a month to convince her that not all boxes were sinister, and she’d almost succeeded when the _Kerblam!_ incident had occurred. Even now, the Doctor remains a touch unnerved by any packaging she considers too cuboid. 

She is nothing if not determined, however, so by the time Clara is sure she’s mastered wrapping boxes, the Doctor seems happy enough to be left to it and she obliges, heading into the kitchen to work on the mince pie recipe she’d acquired from Delia Smith some months prior. She loses herself in the methodical, familiar routine of weighing and mixing and rolling out that she’d first done with her mother during her childhood, wondering idly to herself as she did so what exactly the Time Lady might have got her as a gift.

Taking a plate of the finished products back to the spot in the library where she’d left the Doctor, she finds the Time Lady curled up in a nest-like pile of discarded wrapping paper, a piece tape stuck to the tip of her nose as she snoozes peacefully, exhausted by her endeavours. Beside her is a neatly-wrapped pile of gifts, decorated with mismatched snippets of ribbon and labelled in a childish hand that takes Clara back to her schoolteacher days. She doesn’t peek too closely, despite the temptation, but instead drags her gaze back to her partner, feeling a surge of love for her in that instant.

She smiles, setting the plate down on the floor next to the slumbering Time Lady and reaching for a blanket as she does so. Laying it over the Doctor, she carefully lifts the tape from her partner’s nose and strokes her hair back from her face, allowing her hand to linger against the Doctor’s cheek for a moment before pulling away.

“Sleep well, little Christmas elf,” she murmurs, arranging herself on the nearby sofa and reaching for a mince pie, wondering if the Doctor is soundly enough asleep to be undisturbed by the muted cursing that will undoubtedly accompany her own endeavours at wrapping.

 

* * *

 

Neither of them are sure where exactly the mistletoe came from. One moment the entrance to the library had been unadorned by the white berries; the next they had sprung up, invitingly festive where they nestle in a coronet of emerald leaves. Clara knows what they signify; the Doctor is two or three steps behind, but the implication eventually catches up with her and her cheeks turn a delicate shade of pink. They both strongly suspect this may be the TARDIS’s attempt at entering into the festive spirit, and it’s adorably endearing, sentience-implications aside.

“Well,” Clara says brightly, leaning against the doorframe with a grin and contemplating her partner’s delicately embarrassed expression. “Are you going to kiss me, or not?” 

“Hmm,” the Doctor pretends to think about it for a moment, scrunching her nose up adorably before mischievously deciding: “Or not.”

“Hey!” Clara protests, but before she can say another word, the Time Lady is laughing, pressing her back against the wood and kissing her breathlessly, joyfully silent.

 

* * *

 

When the big day finally rolls around, it’s almost anticlimactic in its simplicity. There’s food and there’s friends – Yaz, Ryan and Graham assemble around the table set up in the library, each bearing enormous grins – and later on there will be presents exchanged between them. It’s nothing fancy, far from it, but it holds echoes of the Christmases Clara used to spend with her family in her youth, and something about that is so warmly comforting that she forgets to feel any lingering sense of sadness and instead gives herself over to enjoying herself absolutely.

As the day ticks on, she discovers that the Doctor is bizarrely good at choosing gifts, so much so that she worries about the safety of her own thoughts, before deciding that perhaps – just perhaps – the years of experience the Time Lady has of her, and the understanding that her partner shares with her friends may have informed her choices… or so she hopes. There’s books and there’s fancy, strange and downright bizarre alien food, and there’s silly, childish toys and games that make them laugh, and she’s satisfied enough with that, but later in the evening they find themselves alone together, just for a few minutes. 

“I have something else for you,” the Doctor tells her in a low voice imbued with nervousness, reaching into her pocket as she speaks. Clara edges nearer, and the Doctor smiles in anticipation, taking her partner’s hand and giving it a quick squeeze. “Close your eyes.”

Clara does as she’s bid, and her heart begins to pound in her chest as she feels her hair being lifted away from her skin and something cool and heavy being fastened around her neck. She can tell at once that it’s a necklace with some sort of pendant hung from it, but only when the Doctor instructs her to open her eyes and admire it does she dare to do so, so worried is she about spoiling the moment.

It’s a shining silver heart set with a TARDIS-blue stone that shimmers in the half-light of the corridor they’ve found themselves in, sending shards of light dancing over the walls and casting patterns over their skin. She takes it in her hand, feeling the metal’s icy bite thaw in response to the contact with her skin, and she is surprised by the weight of it in her fingers. 

“It’s ah…” the Doctor looks almost embarrassed, rubbing the back of her neck before saying in a rush: “It’s made from Betelian silver. Should anything ever happen to us… and you know, I pray it won’t, but just in case – it’ll emit a homing signal to me, or the TARDIS. No matter how far apart we are – it’ll let me know where you are, and I’ll come and find you in a heartbeat.” 

“That’s…” Clara struggles to find the words to express what the gift means to her, feeling tears spring to her eyes at the sheer tenderness of it.

“And urm,” the Doctor mumbles, dropping her gaze to the floor, her mouth twisting into a bashful smile. “It’s a heart so that you’ve got two now. Like me. We match.” 

“I…” 

“Last Christmas, a miracle happened,” the Doctor breathes, and Clara knows at once what she means – the restoration of her memories in a battle-scarred field, and the Doctor’s resulting implicit realisation that there were things that needed to be said between them. Regeneration be damned; there had been other priorities to be attended to, and for that Clara would be eternally grateful. “And the Christmas before, so did another miracle when you took my hand and ran away with me again. But I don’t want to be party to any more Christmas miracles though, not of the reunion type at least. I want this Christmas to be the first of many together. The start of something new.” 

“It will be,” Clara promises at once, rising onto her tiptoes and kissing her partner gently.. “It absolutely will be, because I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’d better not be,” the Doctor smiles, finally meeting her gaze. “My Impossible Girl.”


End file.
